Coming and Going [for Will Graham]

[live_growstronger]

Methos held the ticket in his hand as he stood in the center of train station, eyeing the electronic board that listed the various trains coming and going. His train seemed to be on time, but he still had a few hours before it would leave.

He'd head to Canada first. There were a few places he'd stored a few items- passports, forms, etc, for identities he could assume. Adam Pierson would be no more.

Then he'd head to the Caribbean, figure out his next move there while he had himself a nice vacation and cleared his head.

Hannibal. He cared for the man, if he could be considered that, but this was for the best. He wasn't safe with him.

Comments

[live_growstronger]

"So something changed?" Methos surmised, leaning back in his chair. He looked a lot more comfortable seated there than he actually was. "Because presumably you used to have the 'peace' for it."

[hard2lookaway]

"I did."

Then Hannibal Lecter happened. Will takes the newly delivered shot and looks down into it. "I am talking too much, I suppose." And perhaps he's too tired to care.

[live_growstronger]

"That's okay. I like to listen." Methos waved off the concern, looking up to thank the waiter when he brought their drinks. "But I also like to talk-" he laughed. Granted when he talked he wound up not saying much at all that was true.

"I fish sometimes, but only on shore. I don't like being out on the water."

[hard2lookaway]

If Will tries, he can still feel the water around his legs, fishing even with Abigail. "Why not?" he asks, curious.

[live_growstronger]

"I nearly drowned once. I don't care to relive the experience." Except he hadn't nearly. He had drowned, multiple times in the freezing water of the Atlantic before washing up on the shores of Iceland. Damn Irish monks and their idiotic idea to row across the ocean.

[hard2lookaway]

Ah. Will nods, then tosses back his shot. As he hisses, he says, "Fear changes how our minds work. It changes how we react and act and even how we think."

[live_growstronger]

"Mmm, that is does." Fear more or less shaped the majority of his actions. Fear of death kept him from so much. It was why he was leaving now.

"For the better or the worse, do you think?"

[hard2lookaway]

"Many circumstances dictate that," Will says, rubbing at his forehead, feeling that buzz of the tequila already, all of his training coming back to him, all the studies he read about fear and trauma.

"It can make someone stronger, or it can destroy them."

[live_growstronger]

He sipped his whisky watching Will over the glass, smirking a bit, "Would have been easier to just say... 'depends'."

[hard2lookaway]

"It does depend," Will says, almost smiling for a moment. "But that overly simplifies it, doesn't it? Humans are ... very complex creatures who can't be just 'depends.'"

[live_growstronger]

"This is true." he agreed, a touch meaningfully but still smiling. "We're both more than just two simple humans getting off and onto a train."

"For example, you're a hunter who apparently knows something about human psychology." Which was very interesting.

[hard2lookaway]

Will wags a finger in Adam's direction, smiling dryly. "It makes it better to hunt. Understanding how it works."

Of course, Will has had other chances to take Hannibal down and he hasn't. He cannot hesitate any more.

[live_growstronger]

Methos quirked a brow at that, "Is the psychology of a wild hog similar to a person's?"

If that was what he was actually hunting.

"Baser urges surely. But, we are, as you've said, complex."

[hard2lookaway]

Looking into his water, Will says, "that will to survive and what we will do to stay alive," he say, shrugging a little. "It's what drives us all, isn't it? That above everything else."

[live_growstronger]

"It is for me. I quite like being alive." he agreed, lifting what was left in his glass in a sort of toast. "Within reason, of course." he added as an afterthought even though it wasn't necessarily true in his case. He would do nearly anything sort of killing someone he truly loved. Even then it might take some thought if he truly thought his own life was at risk.

[hard2lookaway]

Will is different, though Adam has no reason to know that: he will gladly die if it saves someone else. Survival is important, but only to a point: his soul is at stake and has suffered for him still being alive.

"Most people do. Within or without reason," Will says, smiling dryly again.

[live_growstronger]

"So they do." Methos commented, watching him curiously, taking in the smile. "Are you speaking from experience? It doesn't sound like you're pleased about it."

[hard2lookaway]

Taking off his glasses and setting them on the bar, Will rubs at his eyes, looking far too weary for someone his age. "What those who wish to survive do to others is, I suppose, what I have a problem with."

[live_growstronger]

Methos wasn't prone to guilt. If he was he'd never be able to leave the house with all that he'd done.

He finished off his drink, signalling the waiter for another.

"And you wish to do something about it?" he posited, voice casual.

[hard2lookaway]

"Only in one case," Will answers, glasses back on his nose. "That's all."

Then, he figures, he's done. He's too brittle and too broken to do anything else.

[live_growstronger]

It's a bit of a reach, but Methos usually had pretty good instincts with people.

"You're not actually hunting a boar are you?"

[hard2lookaway]

Turning those tired, piercing eyes on Adam, Will shakes his head. "No, I'm not. But this is a monster I'm hunting." Make no mistake of that. And the only bait he has is himself.

[live_growstronger]

Methos sighed. This was a quandary, wasn't it? Will probably had a great many and very good reasons for what he planned. But he suspected he knew precisely which monster Will was speaking of.

He reached for his new drink, "So, it very well may be you who will become the hunted... perhaps you'd be better suited leaving the monster be. For your own sake. Let someone else take care of them?"

[hard2lookaway]

"I have already been hunted," Will says with that brittle, faux-conversational tone he's so good at using. "I have been gutted; I have been left for dead. I have lost everything I can lose. This is all I have left."

Hearing himself say that so starkly is shocking even to Will, for what it's worth.

[live_growstronger]

Methos set down his glass, leveling the man with his full gaze. Trying to catch his gaze, if Will would actually look him in the eye.

"It's not. You still have your life. You are still alive. That is something. Unless you are hoping you will lose that too?" he was as much trying to protect Hannibal as he was trying to protect this man now, it would seem.